Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Trump or not, Democrats were doomed

Originally, I posted this at 3 PM on November 12, 2014. I re-post it with a new headline 18 months later because it shows that Obama fundamentally transformed America.

Just like Hoover did.

Oh, and there was this line from the original post:

Democrats are about to learn that "immigration reform" is as big a loser as gun control and global warming.

Guess Republicans did too. Anyway, the original post:

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Clinton?

Gradually it is sinking in to Official Washington that the 2014 election could very well do to Democrats what the 1930 election did to Republicans: make them irrelevant for at least a generation.

In 1930, the first election after the Stock Market Crash saw Republicans go from a 270-164 majority in the House to a minority, albeit by one seat. In the next three elections, Republicans would continue to lose until there were only 88 Republicans in the House after the 1936 election. The Depression wiped out two-thirds of the House Republicans in just eight years and it would be another decade -- and world war -- before Republicans got control once more. And then only for two years and then two years after Eisenhower's election. Democrats controlled the House for 60 of the 64 years from the 1930 election to the 1994 election.

Talk about your climate change. The effects on the nation were devastating but only in retrospective. Incremental socialism came in the guise of helping people and solving problems, even as it grew the government into Godzilla proportion.

In 1930, state legislatures flipped Democratic overnight as well. The damage was long term. It would be 84 years until Republicans controlled the West Virginia House of Delegates again. West Virginia fared well in the 1920s -- far better than most of the 11 Southern states. Today it is the second-poorest state in the nation.

Now then, I am not saying that the 31 states where Republicans control the legislature will definitely go Republican in the 2016 presidential race. But if they do, that's 314 Electoral College votes. You need only 270 to win.

The good news for Republicans and the bad news for Democrats is that scenario seems plausible, because people may be looking for political stability.

So far in this century, we have seen political turmoil that began with a historically close presidential election in 2000 that in its aftermath saw the control of the Senate flip three times. Republicans fared slightly better in 2002 and, but Democrats slammed the door in the 2006 congressional election and in 2008. Republicans roared back in 2010, but the re-election of President Obama gave Democrats a temporary reprieve. This year's election was decisive. Republicans have not done this well in nearly a century.

The carnage this year should demoralize Democrats, particularly Hillary Clinton, who has the misfortune of being the Democratic front runner for 2016. George McGovern and Fritz Mondale feel her pain.

Hillary Clinton was about as effective as Pat Nixon on the campaign trail. Her candidates lost 12 of the 13 tight Senate races she campaigned in. Even the Jacksonville Jaguars have a better winning record this year. She's old and it shows. Her ideas have atrophied. She has been a fixture in Washington for 22 years, always caught in some controversy, always blaming others, always cackling. One reason Democratic Party bosses backed her opponent in the 2008 nomination process was that he was No Drama Obama.

She's 67 and has had only one executive position in her life. And she blew that gig in Benghazi.

Of course, she heads a bench of balsa wood. Behind her is "young Hillary" -- Elizabeth Warren, 65. Then there is the "conservative Democrat," Martin O'Malley, 51, governor of Maryland. He doesn't want the government's boot on your throat; he wants to put its ballet slipper there. He pushed for cheap college tuition for illegal aliens. Democrats are about to learn that "immigration reform" is as big a loser as gun control and global warming.

Andrew Cuomo, 56, may be the most intriguing in the Democratic bunch. He cut a deal with Republicans to get re-elected in exchange for Republicans taking control of the state Senate. After Obama, Democrats may go for a guy who cuts deals, no matter how far below the table they go. Oh and you political virgins out there need to understand, Republicans got the better end of the deal.

But like his father before him, Cuomo doesn't need the presidency. He has all he needs in Albany.

Besides, who needs the noise?

The bottom line is no matter who the Democrats nominate, he or she faces an Electoral College map that is stacked against Democrats. The Solid South now stretches to Wisconsin. If Pennsylvania is in play, Democrats are doomed because the last Democrat to win the presidency without Pennsylvania was Harry Truman in 1948. There's a reason they call it the Keystone State.

House Democrats ended Election Day controlling fewer seats than they have in nearly 80 years, but Nancy Pelosi isn’t conceding anything.

“I do not believe what happened the other night is a wave,” Pelosi said in her first sit-down interview since Democrats lost a dozen House seats to Republicans on Nov. 4.

“There was no wave of approval for the Republicans. I wish them congratulations, they won the election, but there was no wave of approval for anybody. There was an ebbing, an ebb tide, for us.”

As for whether she would consider stepping down as minority leader, Pelosi said she’s needed now more than ever.

“Quite frankly, if we would have won, I would have thought about leaving,” Pelosi declared, a remark that will likely surprise both admirers and detractors.

Pelosi’s take on the midterms is this: It wasn’t a Republican wave, her party’s message is fine and while President Barack Obama thinks Democrats need to play better politics, she believes Democrats just need to better engage voters.

Maybe she wants to break Bob Michel's record for years as minority leader.

Everything is going fine for her. She has all the perks of being a congressional leader with none of the responsibilities. President Obama has to fight the Republicans, not her. Now be a darling and fetch the valet to bring her Escalade around.

As for Obama, he's president. Sure, he has nothing left in his legislative quiver but meaningless gestures. His pact with China on nocturnal emissions (or whatever they are) won't make it out of committee in the Senate. He will spend the next two years working on his golf game and shredding records. E-mail? What's e-mail? My dog, Bo, ate my e-mail.

But the rest of their party is on the brink of political oblivion for a long, long time. The biggest loser is Hillary Clinton, the feminist who rode her husband's coattails to power. Frankly, that's the best thing about the election: It likely killed her career.

Available on Kindle on July 1 -- "Trump the Press: Don Surber's take on how the pundits blew the 2016 Republican race."

34 comments:

That's because some of the people who could have taken the Democrat nomination away from her came out of the day weaker. Andrew Cuomo, Martin O'Malley and Mark Warner for various reasons emerged from Tuesday with weaker hands.

I was really high on Mark Warner as the person who would come out of left field and surprise everyone in 2016. There was a British book laying 85-1 on him winning the Democrat nomination, and if I was in England at the time, I would have made that bet.

Sure, there were #HillarysLosers, but those are people who will be forgotten by the time 2016 comes around.

I have been thinking until now the only real hurdle for HRC is the Democrat nomination. But now that all that's left in her way in terms of a real challenge is the Dime Store Indian, and probably she won't run if HRC does, I think she's a cinch to win the nomination. Then on to November...she wipes the floor with Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney.

Oh, Hillary is still the odds on favorite to win the nomination. But she won't win the election. History is against it. An eight year incumbent has only kept the White House in the party twice in the last hundred years: When Truman served out Roosevelt's fourth term and won on his own, and when people voted for George Bush the Elder thinking they were going to get a third Reagan term. Obama won't be more popular in 2016 than he is now. The Democrats are toast.

Maybe. That's the eternal advantage the Dems have as Republicans are too busy working for a living to match the lunatic output of the Left but all the stops were already pulled out, no? Yes. Whatever. Give 110%. Forward.

The most plausible candidate by far has to be reckoned. He is Scott Walker. He is a squish on several issues, like immigration, 2nd A and so-called 'global warming' but he has taken on the most vicious skunks the Left can muster THREE TIMES and won. He did not respond in kind, as I would have preferred and we still wait to see if he is going to take any action against the low-down Wisconsin Democrat who turned their elective and appointed offices against Republicans nakedly and violently. But his methods have had electoral success. He makes the right people squirm. I agree that Hillary is a paper tiger and certainly has been since Obama stole the nomination from her with thuggery. The case for her success has always been the assumption that black turnout would at least return to the pre-Obama mean with herself on the ticket. Nope, sorry. She might have been able to fudge the dilemma that Obamaphilia will encourage black turnout and crush all the rest, before The Second Coat of The Great Shellacking. Not now. Like Grimes she will be forced to feign amnesia (she is practiced at this) as to whether she voted for Obama, worked under Obama or indeed, has ever heard of the man. That will be a delight whomever takes the Poisoned Chalice of the Dem nom in '16 but Hillary is my first choice. Forward.

From over the Mississipi here in Iowa, Walker looks very good. And I don't usually go apocalyptic, but his win was a triumph of good over evil, light over dark. But, how about Kasich? Broader experience, governor of a more important (sorry Badgers) state?

Pennsylvania Red? You must be joking. For statewide elections, the machine in Philly will manufacture enough Dem votes to put the Dem candidate over the top, even if it means a 150% turnout. They've done it before, they will do it again. As it appears, they might be up to the same tricks in Fairfax County, VA.

It's all about fraud in the battleground states. Voter ID in Wisconsin should help. Keep the margin of fraud down to less than 1% and the Republicans could turn WI & OH. Pennsylvania may be a bridge too far.

WA State will, sadly, remain blue, due to the fact that ballots are mailed in and there's no voter ID requirement other than having to show proof of residence with a utility bill or similar correspondence. WA also has a large population of illegal aliens. In other words, my state is rife with vote fraud at all levels, which disenfranchises us legal citizens.

The GOP will run another Rove Republican POS who will lose in a landslide to Joe Biden. The two parties have become nothing more than opposite ends of the same steaming turd. The only difference is whose cronies get to slop at the government trough when THEY are in charge.

Or are you STILL too Gruber to understand that RomneyCare is the Baby Daddy for Obamacare???

ENTER: Mr. Donald J. Trump. NOBODY has dominated the media talking heads in sheer style, style as he chooses, and continues to draw ratings. It's simple. He's telling the truth and WE THE PEOPLE LOVE IT!

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I live in Poca, West Virginia, with my lovely wife of 40 years, Lou Ann. I am an Army veteran and Cleveland State graduate. I retired after 40 years as a newspaperman. In 2016, I published "Trump the Press," which drew rave reviews at Power Line and Instapundit.